Ge's c. 330 Baopuzi describes how Liu redacted his Liexian Zhuan in a context explaining the reason Liu failed to produce an alchemical gold elixir using the private method of Liu An was because no teacher had transmitted the necessary oral explanations to him.

As for his compilation ? of Liexian zhuan, he revised and extracted ??...? passages from the book by the Qin grandee Ruan Cang ??, and in some cases [added] things he had personally seen ????, and only thus ?? came to record ? it. It is not an unwarranted fabrication ([or "fiction"] ????).